Progressively reducing his pictorial language to the essentials — a single colour, a single form — Stéphane Bordarier explores the potential of a painting that is both rigorous and deeply sensitive. His works arise from an unchanging process: on a canvas stretched over a stretcher and coated with warm animal glue, he applies the pigment while the glue is setting. The artist then describes himself as being 'chased' from the canvas by the material as it fixes, which determines the completion of the painting: colour and form come together in a resolution specific to each work. Generally reduced to a single tone, the surface of the canvas acquires, through the impregnation of the pigment mixed with the glue, a matt appearance and a particular intensity. The painting is thus constructed in a close relationship with time.
In the series Noires, the colour, resulting from a mixture of two tones directly on the canvas, never appears as a fixed or absolute value but reveals a subtle chromatic depth. These works, traversed by shifting nuances, sensitive to light and to the movement of the gaze, allow their process of creation to be perceived.
For nearly thirty years, the Galerie Jean Fournier in Paris accompanied and presented the work of Stéphane Bordarier. He is today represented by the Galerie Dina Vierny.
Thanks to a recent acquisition supplemented by a gift from the artist, five works by Stéphane Bordarier entered the museum's collections in 2026. They are presented here alongside several loans from the studio, offering a significant overview of his career and his pictorial research.